<p>One of my cousins is a Brandeis sibling (his older brother graduated from Brandeis several years ago) and was accepted as a priority applicant this past week. He is ranked 1, near perfect SAT scores, excellent leadership and extracurriculars, but was offered no merit aid. His older brother got a nice merit award (20k/year) several years ago but had significantly weaker stats.</p>
<p>Naturally, my aunt and uncle were concerned about the discrepancy, and gave the Fin Aid office a call, and it turns out that the school has really changed its game plan. Factors like total family income, number of kids currently in college, value of total assets, etc now play in to the merit award decisions. While Brandeis has been relatively generous in the past, it looks like they’re no longer going to be generous unless they really have to be (i.e. to positively impact enrollment of low-income, URM, and international students) or to specifically draw in some special students.</p>